Ian Douglas joined the Telegraph in 1999 when the web was young and simple, and is now head of digital production. He writes about technology, science, the internet and beekeeping.

Richard Feynman on reality

Richard Feynman was the ideal physics professor. Utterly brilliant and engaging with a wide streak of anti-authoritarian feeling he was an inspiration.

Richard Feynman in full flow

His books are excellent but I've never seen him speak, until now. Microsoft, god bless their well-funded enthusiasm, have digitised some of his lectures and published them online on their Project Tuva website, which collects bits of video and puts them online to try to get you to download Silverlight, their Flash competitor. Just one of these lectures alone would be worth the install, but there are seven of them, more than eight hours on a variety of subjects from gravity to the nature of the present.

I can't embed them here – Microsoft won't let me – but I do urge you to set aside a little time and watch this great series. Apart from the enormous pleasure of seeing how a college campus looked in the fifties, they're a very good introduction to topics that are still current in physics.

He's funny, clear, knowledgeable and entertaining. This is the best science video I've seen in a long time. Some choice quotes:

'I find it odd then when an introduction mentions that I play the bongo drums it rarely finds it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics. It shows that we have more respect for the arts than for science.'

'Our main concentration will not be how clever we are to have found it all out, but on how clever [nature] is to pay attention to it.'

'There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understand the theory of relativity. I don't believe there ever was such a time. Maybe once there was only one man who had caught on, before he finished his paper, then after other people read it there were a lot of people who understood relativity in one way or another. More than twelve. On the other hand I can safely say that no one understands quantum mechanics.'

'I'm going to tell you what nature behaves like, and if you'll just simply admit that maybe she does behave like this you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing.'